"Producing ethanol from renewable biomass sources such as grasses is desirable because they are potentially available in large quantities," said University of Georgia Professor Joy Peterson, chairwoman of the school's Bioenergy Task Force. She developed the technology with former microbiology student Sarah Kate Brandon and Professor Mark Eiteman.

The researchers said the new technology features a fast, mild, acid-free pre-treatment process that increases by at least 10 times the amount of simple sugars released from inexpensive biomass for conversion to ethanol. They said the process effectively eliminates the use of expensive and environmentally unsafe chemicals currently used to pre-treat biomass.

The technology is available for licensing from the University of Georgia Research Foundation, which has filed a patent application.